Fan Activism with Shawn Taylor & Katie Bowers
We discuss Fan Activism with the co-founder of Nerds of Color and the managing director of Fandom Forward (formerly Harry Potter Alliance). Shawn is a founding author of www.thenerdsofcolor.org, and a founding organizer of The Black and Brown Comix Arts Festival. He is a recognized scholar and sought-after speaker in the areas of pop culture and participatory culture studies, mythology, folk and netlore, experimental theater, and media studies. In his other life, he spent twenty years in non-profit adolescent mental health and juvenile justice work. He was a Senior Fellow with the Pop Culture Collaborative. Currently, he works as a coach and consultant for individual creatives and organizations and is a university lecturer. Katie has been leading Fandom Forward’s campaigns since 2013. Fandom Forward is an international nonprofit harnessing the power of pop culture to make activism more accessible for everyone. They've been doing this for over 15 years with hundreds of thousands of fan activists. Katie has played an integral role in some of their most iconic campaigns, and her commitment to relational organizing and community-centered leadership has played an essential role in shaping the organization into what it is today.